for two dirhams, and would purchase a shimāl (1) to carry it.

Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, noticing the healthy colour of Sālim’s face, asked him, “What do you eat?”

He replied, “Bread and olive oil; and when I find meat, I eat it.”

ʿUmar (2) said to him, “Do you actually crave it?”

He answered, “If I do not crave it, I leave it until the craving returns.” (3)

Abū al-Malīḥ al-Raqqī narrated from Maymūn ibn Mihrān, who said:

“I entered the house of Ibn ʿUmar, appraised everything in it, and found that it was not worth one hundred dirhams. I went in again on another occasion and could not find anything equal to the price of a single ṭaylasān (cloak). When I later visited Sālim, I found him in exactly the same state as his father.” (4)

Zayd ibn Muḥammad ibn Zayd transmitted from Nāfiʿ, who said:

“Ibn ʿUmar used to kiss Sālim and say, ‘An old man kissing an old man.’” (5)

Ibn Saʿd reported—through Muḥammad ibn Ḥarb al-Makkī, who heard it from Khālid ibn Abī Bakr—that:

“It reached me that Ibn ʿUmar was reproached for his love for Sālim, and he would recite:
‘They blame me for Sālim, and I blame them in turn;
The strip of skin between eye and nose—why, that itself is Sālim.’ (6)

Ibn Abī al-Zinād said:

“The people of Medina used to dislike taking an umm al-walad (a slave-woman who had borne her master a child). Then there arose among them three illustrious leaders—ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, and Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh—who surpassed the rest of Medina’s people in knowledge, piety, worship, and scrupulousness; after that, people began to desire sarārī (concubines).” (7)